I own a lot of random shit that related to DnD. I have more six sided dice than could possibly be used by the group in a single turn (at least for DnD, I may actually need more for GURPS). I have...two DM screens I think, a stack of character sheets and maps that is quite literally as thick as my EMT-B course textbook. I have four dice rolling programs and an obselete 2nd Edition AD&D toolset installed on my laptop. I own like five Planescape box sets, one for Dark Sun, one for Forgotten Realms, and so on. I bought 3.0/3.5 Edition books on a monthly basis and got a hold of pretty much every product with the d20 logo on it. I purchased every d20 Modern book except Future Tech, Dark * Matter, and some monster manual type book (Shadow Chasers had just bottomed out though and Modern caused me to get a little wonky in the brain just then).
Point is that I guess you can say I put my money where my...I dunno, heart is.
I mentioned to Jeremy the other night that I haven't purchased any 4th Edition books since my initial five book purchase. I think that, more than anything else I could say says something about 4th Edition. Sorry Mr. Perkins.
The thing is, I love 4th Edition. Seriously. I think its great if you can get past the dragonbewbs and the whole leather is the new hawtness motif of the artwork. If I was still sixteen or seventeen, or if I had never read The Iron Dragon's Daughter and way too much Michael Moorcock stuff, 4th Edition's high fantasy rules-light glory would take me to a happy place. I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment, or an outright cut down or whatever, but I do genuinely like the system. The problem is that I'm too overly aware of its flaws because I'm not who it was made for.
I don't know the name for my breed of gamer or DnD nerd or whatever you'd call me. I am what I am though. I need overly complex rules that account for everything, I need my heroes to be scarred and scruffy with vices as big as Conan's biceps. I need my magic to be twisted and destined to be the ruin of man. I need technology to be at a believable/realistic level based on the age of the world and its starting tech level. I'm that kind of gamer, whatever the name for it is.
4th Edition wasn't made for dudes like me. It was made for this generation of gamers and I'm not a guy that grew up on MMOs and pokemon, though I have great affection for both and have dabbled in them. Call that a criticism if you want, its not, to be relevant and ensure its continued survival a game must evolve with the times. Don't get me wrong, I like pokemon games and I enjoy MMOs and am not saying being hardcore into them or growing up with them is a bad thing in any way. I'm just saying I reach a point eventually where they don't interest me. To continue: 4th Edition is (bold)DnD, just as every edition preceding it has been DnD. I explained what DnD is in a previous post I believe so we can stop here on this "what is DnD" issue.
Back on topic-ish. With 4th Edition I've basically just been going through the motions. I keep abreast of the release schedule, interesting projects like the PA/PVP Podcasts and the Robot Chicken sessions, and I keep up my DDI subscription so I get info on new releases and have access to the character builder if anyone wants to utilize that fun little resource. The only reason I do all of this, if I am being honest with myself, is to access as much power creep as possible to keep Spineplate as over-powered as possible so that he can be shiny and stand in front of a bunch of lace wearing quiche eaters (i.e. pansies).
The following is meant in jest...mostly.
Rage GM Interlude: If Spineplate dies because those idiots don't understand concepts like "focus fire" or "give the dude between us and the swords backup" I'm going to bend them over and make them bleed. From their asses. Because I'm raping them. With Spineplate's hammercock. End Interlude.
We're getting somewhere here, just bear with me. If this all seems to be random and the point seems to wander, its because I often switch points mid-post. What I've figured out after writing all of the above is this:
I haven't played DnD in a long time. A long, long time.
As I've said before, DnD is color coded dragons and dread gazebos. It's ripping off Tolkien. DnD is narrowly defined/vauge to the point of uselessness alignments. The settings I have always gravitated to are Planescape (where alignment, religion, and philosophy are dead-fuck-serious business), Dark Sun (magic eats life, no color coded dragons, hobbits, or water), and Spelljammer (SPACE! [and miniature giant space hamsters]). In my opinion (pro-tip: every word hammered out onto this page is always just that, an opinion) those are the least "DnD" of all the settings published so far by Wizards/TSR and Ravenloft comes in a close 4th and I like it too.
My campaign uses a d20 ruleset currently. My magic ain't pretty and doesn't come in a variety of shiny and useful plusses, my campaign has rifles so powerful that they make full plate irrelevant and crude semiautomatic weapons are even in the process of being developed. My dragons are greenish-brown komodo dragon and crocodile looking motherfuckers that spit acid and are the size of a house.
I don't play DnD anymore and I'm ok with that.
Music: To The Kill - Violent Femmes
Music: Gimme The Car - Violent Femmes
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